The Wolf at Bay (Big Bad Wolf)

by Charlie Adhara

  “That happen to be the same summer Alex Hardwick disappeared?”

  Dean shrugged but said, “Yeah, I guess so.” He glanced at their dad, but Ed was just staring into space.

  “And did you have a company put the gazebo in, Mr. Dayton?”

  “A company?” Ed repeated back like he didn’t understand the question. Cooper didn’t get why he was taking this so hard. Was it disturbing that their missing neighbor had been rotting away in the backyard all these years? Hell yeah. But his dad was acting like they’d told him they’d just dug up Mom or something.

  “Dad?” Dean prompted.

  “No. I built it myself. Thought it’d be nice for... No wonder it’s falling apart, huh?” He laughed his forced, awkward laugh, and no one joined him.

  A uniform approached the room and hovered awkwardly in the doorway.

  “Stop lurking and c’mon in, Damien,” Ed called, beckoning him closer. The man, Damien, waved back but didn’t come in any farther, just looked at the agents and jerked his head toward the backyard, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Excuse me,” Joon said, and went to speak to him in the hall.

  Ed blinked at their retreating backs, and for a moment, seeing him look lost, embarrassed and old, Cooper felt a strange surge of protectiveness for his father, something he’d never felt before.

  “BSI. Bureau of Special Investigation, right?” Primelles said thoughtfully. “Remind me what is it exactly you guys cover, again?”

  “Especially violent crime,” Cooper muttered, feeling like committing one himself. It was the standard response they were told to give, but while his dad was still out of it, lost in his own thoughts, he could see Dean listening with narrowed eyes. So he’d told his family he worked behind the scenes. Paperwork mostly, and some traveling up and down the East Coast evaluating law agencies. A sort of oversight and research committee. Yeah, he’d lied. So what?

  “And Mr. Park... Mr. Park?” Primelles frowned. Park was staring into space, eyes half-closed like he was falling asleep, or concentrating. “Oliver Park.”

  Dean was watching him with confusion, and Cooper punched him lightly in the arm.

  Park shook his head and smiled. “I’m sorry. What were you saying, Agent?”

  Before Primelles could continue, Joon came back into the room and gave him a very unsubtle and significant look. “We’ll need to talk to you separately now. Mr. Ed Dayton? We’ll start with you. Is there somewhere private we can speak”—she looked at Cooper—“uninterrupted?”

  “What? Why? What did you find just now? What happened?”

  His dad seemed to finally get a hold of himself at that point and come alive, though not in the way Cooper expected. “Cooper Isaac. Enough. They’re just doing their jobs. Of course I’ll give a statement. Dean? Take care of your brother.”

  Cooper spluttered at that and looked at Park. But Park was watching Ed with his classic closed expression and didn’t say a word as the agents led Cooper’s father away.

  * * *

  It was dark by the time the suits stopped the grilling and the crime scene guys started to pack up. Cooper stood in his old bedroom and looked over them as they finished removing the last of the bones. He had already watched them take soil samples and bag and tag all of his father’s tools. It was a familiar scene, one he’d overseen plenty of times on the job, made surreal by the fact it was happening in his childhood backyard. The dark figures moving around in the shadows looked like aliens, imposters, and he had to stop himself from running out there and screaming at them to get out. They didn’t belong here.

  Catty-corner to the yard, Mrs. Hardwick’s house hunkered down in darkness. In her back window, overlooking the crime scene, Cooper could sometimes catch movement, so slight it could be the reflection of bat wings as they swooped and soared for their evening meal. Or it could be Mrs. Hardwick doing the same thing he was, reviewing the reality of life for the last twenty-five years and making edits. While he had climbed into his mother’s lap where she sat in her gazebo, a man had been buried, still meaty and whole, ten feet below them. While he had been getting his first kiss, flat on his back in the field, streaked with mud and under the stars, a man had been turning into desiccated flesh and bones, flat on his back, forty feet away. While he had fought with his father and lover just hours ago, a man’s bones had been slowly revealed beneath Cayla’s singing and stomping feet.

  And those were just the changes that he, a nobody, a random neighbor kid to Mr. Hardwick, had to make. What new reality did his wife have to piece together after finding out her runaway husband had never made it farther than the neighbor’s yard?

  “Hey.” Park came into the room and stood next to him.

  “That took a while,” Cooper said. “I didn’t think they’d even want to talk to you.”

  “Mmm.” Park sighed. “They’re being...thorough.”

  “What was that about before? In the front room? You were listening to what Damien told Agent Joon, weren’t you?”

  Park grimaced. “Yeah. They found the murder weapon buried with the vic.”

  “Okay. That’s good, right?”

  “It looks like someone bashed his head in with a long-handled hoe. The hoe matches the other tools in your father’s shed, Cooper.”

  “No,” he said automatically. “I mean, fine. I’m sure a lot of people have the same kind.”

  “Maybe. But his is missing. I noticed this morning, and so did the agents.”

  “Okay, so what? He doesn’t even garden.”

  Park held up his hands. “I’m just telling you what they’re thinking.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I may have done a bit more eavesdropping just now.”

  “Good. That’s good, thank you.” Park was shaking his head. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “They’re coming at him hard, Cooper, and he’s...not really helping himself.”

  “Help himself? Why should he need to help himself?”

  “He won’t answer their questions.”

  “Because he doesn’t have to,” Cooper protested, feeling uneasy, remembering the way Ed had completely shut down earlier. “He’s innocent!”

  “If you were in their shoes, what would you think if a witness with means, motive, and opportunity kept evading every question?”

  “Motive? What motive?”

  Park looked away. “I don’t know.” He paused. Then, “They implied Hardwick was a bit of a flirt.”

  Cooper laughed. “And what, my dad freaked out? I know I’ve been weird about coming out to him, but I didn’t mean to make it sound like he’s a monster.”

  “They weren’t saying Hardwick was flirting with him.”

  Cooper blinked. “My mom? No, that’s ridiculous. You don’t know my parents. You don’t know her.”

  “I’m just telling you what they were saying.”

  Cooper looked away from him back to the window. It was so dark now that his own reflection almost entirely blocked the outside scene.

  After a moment, Park’s hand smoothed over his shoulder, across his shoulder blades and down his back. Cooper swayed into the touch. Despite being kept waiting, each of them separate, and doing nothing for hours, he was exhausted. A part of him, a big part, wanted to turn to Park to burrow into his warmth and strength and not come out till next spring.

  “Are you okay?”

  He straightened, pulling away from Park’s hand. “The FBI thinks my dad murdered our neighbor, Oliver. I’m fine, how are you?”

  “I’ve been better.” Park smiled. “Besides that, how are you?”

  “It’s weird. I really thought that gazebo had always been there, you know. Even looking out now with it gone, it’s not triggering any sort of memory of before.”

  “Well, you were young.”

  “Not that young. And old enough to rememb
er Mr. Hardwick pretty well.”

  “Maybe because you associate the gazebo so much with your mom, you can’t imagine it not being there.”

  Cooper shuddered. “She spent as much time as possible in that thing. Even after she was sick and got so cold so easily, I used to pull all the comforters off the beds and drag them across the yard to her.” He laughed. “Dad would get so furious, but he never took them back. One day he just bought a huge blanket and chest to keep out there all the time.”

  Outside the techs wheeled a dark blue body bag away. It looked empty with so little left of the man. “I liked him,” Cooper said, watching them.

  “Who, your dad?”

  “No. Mr. Hardwick. He was so...bright, you know? One of those people everyone just gravitates toward. Flirt, huh? Maybe. I think it was more like charisma. Like you.”

  Park snorted. “Me?”

  “Yeah, I’ve always thought that. Even when I didn’t want to like you, I couldn’t stay away.” Park tilted his head, staring intently, like he was hearing something utterly fascinating, and Cooper laughed, feeling awkward. “Anyway. Hardwick was one of those. He was unbelievably cool. And so happy and handsome and...full of life.” He paused. “I used to think he and I had a special sort of relationship.”

  Park frowned.

  “No. God. Not like that. He was never inappropriate with me. Not at all. But looking back I think I had a little childish crush, or whatever the equivalent of a nine-year-old crush is. Not sexual, of course, but shit, I idolized him. Wanted to be him, wanted to be near him. I just really wanted him to like me.”

  Cooper shook his head. The more he thought about it, the more the memories became clear. Like unlocking dusty old boxes in his head. “I was devastated when he left. I don’t think I spared one thought for Mrs. Hardwick—I was too busy feeling abandoned and personally betrayed. As if he had cared about me any more than any of the other brats trailing after him all day. I remember thinking he’d ruined my whole summer break.” He laughed. “And then by winter break I’d forgotten all about him.”

  “You fickle thing.”

  “Aren’t I just?” He sighed. “I’m going to call Santiago and ask for some time off. I can’t leave until this is all settled. Not with this ridiculous suspicion hanging over my dad’s head.”

  Park nodded. “I can stay, too. As long as you need me.”

  Cooper’s heart skipped with relief and pleasure even as he flapped his hand at Park. “I don’t need—I mean, you’re welcome to stay, but if you can’t get the time off, don’t worry about it.”

  “I already have it.”

  He frowned. “When? How?”

  “I let them know I was taking personal leave a few days ago. After the Ann Arbor case.”

  Cooper blinked at him. “I didn’t know that.” Obviously. “Why...were you going to tell me that before we got back to DC on Monday?”

  “Of course,” Park said, so adamantly he sounded like he was convincing himself. “Look, I just needed some time off—”

  “From what? The job or me?”

  Park sighed. “It’s not like that.”

  “Okay, I’m asking you what it is like.”

  “Cooper—” Park broke off, covering his face with his hands as if he had a headache, but not before Cooper saw a flash of wolf in his eyes. For the second time that day. With everything that had happened, Cooper had forgotten about their fight outside and Park had let him. Just like every other time, he was sure Park would let it go and not bring it up again. Another fresh start. Another clean slate. Another new beginning.

  Suddenly Cooper didn’t want it.

  The problem with constantly starting over was that you never get very far on the journey.

  “I’m sorry,” Cooper blurted. His heart was beating hard, but fuck it, what were they here for if not this?

  Park looked at him. He had that same odd look on his face he’d had when they first got to Jagger Valley that looked so much like nerves, but a little hopeful, too. “For what?”

  “Everything. Well, for earlier, and for being, you know, me.” Cooper laughed awkwardly.

  “What the hell, Dayton,” Park said, sounding angry. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

  “Relax, I just mean... I know I’ve been a dick recently. I don’t want you to think I’m proud of that or that I don’t regret it.” He sighed and fidgeted. “I need you to know I’m trying to do better. These last few months have been...weird, with, you know, work and stuff. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to get short with you just because I’m stressed.”

  A flash of understanding passed over Park’s face. “What they say does bother you.”

  “Of course it bothers me,” Cooper retorted. “How could it not fucking bother me? It’s horrible being hated. I get that you’re like universally beloved, but still, don’t tell me that’s surprising to you.”

  “You don’t say anything. You won’t let me say anything.”

  “Because it’s also fair. My ex-partner was a bigoted, homicidal, piece-of-shit sociopath and I didn’t even notice. What does that say about me? There’s a whole team still tracking down those disgusting videos, for god’s sake. I don’t deserve to do this job. They know it, I know it, and while you’re being very sweet and protective of my feelings because, I don’t know, I’m a good lay or something, you know it, too.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  Considering these were things he’d been thinking almost daily for over four months, it was unexpectedly hard to voice them now to Park. Why? Because the guilt was still visceral. Because it had revealed things about himself he didn’t like and he wasn’t sure he deserved redemption. Because it was humiliating. Because he cared what Park thought of him.

  Because he cared about Park.

  It was absurd to keep pretending like he didn’t. Especially to himself. He’d started caring about Park during their first disastrous case together. He’d realized how much as soon as he saw him in that cage and thought he could lose him.

  “Are you thinking of leaving the BSI?” Park asked simply, and Cooper appreciated the dry, hard straightforwardness, even if hearing the words he’d only skirted around himself felt as brutal as a jab to the windpipe. Breathtaking. Choking.

  “I don’t know.” He tried to match the honesty. “I don’t know what I’d do besides this.”

  And he didn’t want to lose Park. That was why he was struggling with this building pressure to nail down their relationship. What were they outside of partners? It was all too tied up right now. Everything in limbo at once. If he left the BSI, was he saying goodbye to Park as well? Until he knew that, was Park the only reason he was staying?

  No, he still loved the job, even if it didn’t love him back so much these days. And he—well, yeah, he was pretty fucking fond of Park, too, obviously. And what Park felt about Cooper in return was...affection? Sure, yeah. Cooper’s self-esteem wasn’t quite low enough to think Park didn’t give a shit about him at all. But did he care enough to keep seeing him if they no longer worked together and it stopped being convenient? Enough to stop hiding their relationship and actually go places in public when—no, if they didn’t have the excuse of being partners to keep it on the down low anymore? If people knew they were sleeping together, it wouldn’t matter if Cooper left or not—all the hostility he got now would just transfer to Park.

  Who would willingly take that on? Who the hell was Cooper to ask him to?

  “Look,” Cooper said when Park started to respond with some no doubt well-intentioned suggestion. “Please don’t say anything. Just because I’m complaining about something doesn’t mean I want you to fix it for me. I’ve looked out for myself for a long time now.”

  “But you don’t have to. I can handle it.”

  “I know!” Cooper winced at the frustration in his voice.
He remembered something Park had said to him back in Florence. I see why you don’t apologize more often. You’re terrible at it. He softened his voice. “Believe me, I know you can handle it. You handle everything. You’re always handling everything. I mean, even that story of you saving your brother out of a tree at what, eight? Meanwhile, I apparently can’t even remember being eight.”

  Cooper threw his hands up. “So I get it. I know you’re this ridiculous superhero and you always have been. Shit, you might not believe in magic, but to me you’re as close to magical as anything I’ve ever known. And not just because of the whole werewolf thing, but because you’re you. All special and brilliant and patient and funny and you know, sort of good-looking sometimes, I guess.”

  Park raised his eyebrows.

  “But I also know I’m just a—I’m not like that. I’m a mess, honestly, at least lately. So it’s embarrassing to talk about with you. And I really don’t want you getting involved in my problems. It’s not just that I can take care of myself. I want to. Can you please respect that?”

  Park looked away for a long moment. When he turned back, his expression was thoughtful. “Okay, I’ll back off. But can I at least say something about something else? Something that is about me?”

  Cooper shrugged, suddenly nervous.

  “In that tree with my brother, I was pissed at him. I thought he was being ridiculous. A baby. I didn’t want to wait for him to relax, so I tried to drag him down when he wasn’t ready. He shifted, his first shift, which is hard in the best of circumstances, and I almost lost him. Not to mention what happened to my sort-of-good-looking-sometimes face.” Park touched his tongue to the scar through his lip. “I try to use it to remember not to be impatient and...controlling.” He gave Cooper a strange look, a little unsure, almost worried. “I use it to remember that rushing other people risks losing them completely, so I try not to rush, but I screw up, too. I screw up a lot more than you know. So I hope you won’t be embarrassed if you do want to talk about anything.”